Journalists Cover Massacre, Become Targets Themselves

November 30, 1987|By KNT News Service

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — Journalists became targets Sunday when armed gangs sowed terror in Haiti as part of a campaign to wreck the elections and prevent coverage of atrocities that were being committed.

Dominican newsman Carlos Grullon, of TV Rahintel in Santo Domingo, was killed and two ABC-TV technicians and their Haitian driver were wounded.

ABC-TV correspondent Peter Collins said he, a two-man camera crew and their Haitian driver were stopped by a car with four gunmen in it. The crew stopped the van, opened the doors and ran for cover.

The camera crew -- Javier Carillo and Alfredo Mejia -- took refuge behind a wall with Haitian driver Franklin Ver. Collins was crouched down on the other side of the van.

The gunmen searched behind the wall and ''took careful and deliberate aim at our crew,'' Collins said. Carrillo, 33, of Mexico, was shot in the leg and Mejia, 29, of El Salvador, in the arm. Both left Haiti aboard a special aircraft Sunday afternoon. Ver, wounded in the chest, was treated in Haiti.

Free-lance photographer Steven Wilson, 35, of Wadsworth, Ohio, said gunmen ran him off the road and forced him to kneel in the street with a gun at his head. He was robbed of his camera, wallet and passport. He was let go, but a bullet shattered the window of his car as he drove away. He was unhurt.